Finding Purpose - Song of my Life - Kristine van Dooren

VIDEO PODCAST #1

Welcome Friends! I have a special surprise for you; a new addition to my audio, story episodes!

I have received many lovely messages, from my “Finding Purpose” listeners, over the past few months. Often the question comes up; “How did I get started doing a podcast in the first place?”

So I decided, to let you on the personal side of my life, by doing some video podcasts. For the first series, I have invited my daughter, Naomi van Dooren, to join me for a conversation. Since she enjoys listening to my podcast, I thought it would be fun, to let her ask me questions about it. Unfolding in these series, I will touch on different topics, and stages of my life.

Of course, I will be continuing with my story episodes as usual. Every once in awhile I will surprise you with a “Conversations” video! So stay tuned for that!

*** You can watch the video on my Youtube channel: Kristine van Dooren   *** Please subscribe, like and share it with your friends! Thanks alot!

I was thinking about how to begin this episode, which will include our visit with my parents and our hippie friends, when this word came to my mind - hippiedom. I was thinking of our lives back then as a journey out of “hippiedom”. All of our new experiences, were going to affect the relationships we had, with everyone we knew. The challenge we had at the time, was learning a new way of communicating, with family members and old friends. Their lives were still the same, ours on the other hand, had changed drastically. We were going to need God’s wisdom, in how to explain, why our purpose in life was different now.

I looked up the word “hippiedom” in the dictionary to see if it’s a real word. Sure enough it is, and here are some of the descriptions I found, that are varied and interesting. It means the condition, or state of being, characterized by unconventional dress, and the communal lifestyle, that developed in the 60s. The values were counterculture towards the established society, with an opposition to war, with liberal attitudes toward sexuality, and the use of marijuana and psychedelic drugs.

Funny, but I didn’t see music listed in any of the definitions. I would tend to say, since I lived through that period, that the music was the most obvious and driving force, behind the hippie movement of the 60s and early 70s.

So that leaves the question, what does it mean if someone comes out of the hippiedom world. Well, the most dangerous influence that we experienced, was believing in fake spirituality that was called the “New Age of Aquarius.”  Of course the regular use of drugs, and living in this imaginary world of meditating, with so called spiritual music, held us captive.

   Compared to the dictionary, there is also is a Biblical description. According to the Bible, in the book of Acts chapter 11, it says the “disciples were called Christians.” They were people who had heard the gospel of “repent and believe” from the apostles that Jesus had sent out. There are only two other references to the followers of Jesus being called Christians. These three verses are all in the context of persecution, that the new believers and apostles were going through at the time. Peter wrote in his first letter to the early church, “If anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name.”

   After hearing Jim Durkin’s sermon in Eureka that day, we had a lot of food for thought. We continued being busy with daily life at the ranch, but both of us had lasting impressions, because of the things that Jim had said. There were probably at least, 400 people listening to him, but we received his words as if he was speaking personally to us. He didn’t even know Thomas and I, but we took to heart, his message as of a father to his children.

In particular, it was when Jim said, that he believed that God was preparing our generation, to take the truth of the gospel to the ends of the earth. And then he pointed out, that God was forming ours characters, for this calling. He used the example of Paul writing to his son in the faith, Timothy. He wrote that he needs to train men, to be “able” teachers and leaders.

So Thomas looked up the verse that Jim was referring to. In our King James Bibles, it said in 2 Timothy chapter 2, verse 2;

“The things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.”

Then Jim had used the example of our men who went out tree planting, that they were learning to do hard work, that required both physical and mental stamina to be able endure. They were learning to work as a team, and also suffer the hardships that were involved. We were deeply touched, by the way Jim conveyed to us, not only Paul’s teachings, but his heart towards the Lord, and his love for the church.

   Here are just a few of the important points that Thomas wanted us to look at. You have to picture us sitting by the oil lamp in our room at the Big House. Naomi was sleeping in her little crib and we were quietly reading through the scriptures. We had only been Christians for seven months and knew that the only way we would grow, was if we studied the scriptures ourselves.

Reading the Bible every day at 11 o clock was part of the daily schedule for everyone at Living Waters. But Thomas and I, found that discussing what we were reading, helped us understand it better. And when we had questions, he would ask Tom Petersen, to explain it to him. 

   Everything we were reading was in itself, transforming our minds, like Paul had written concerning becoming a new creation. These truths were driving away all the lies that we had accumulated from the hippie philosophies, that we once believed in. And it gave Thomas even more confidence, in writing to his mother, because she was also bound up in various false religions.  

For one of those teams, the trip ended tragically. Thomas and I were at the Big House, when one of our friends came in, and said they just received terrible news. One of the trucks that was on its way back to the ranch, was in a car accident. We were in disbelief as we listened to the report.

Our friend Jim Layne, and his young son, were in a truck with another man, and a woman. We were told that they swerved from the road, to avoid an oncoming car, and hit a tree. Both Jim and his son, and the other man were killed, and the woman survived with a few injuries. We were all in shock. Many of us had travelled those roads, back and forth, and couldn’t imagine something so awful happening.

Thomas was especially sad, because he loved, and appreciated Jim’s example in the Lord. Jim and Tom Petersen had shared the gospel with him the day he arrived at the ranch. They had prayed with Thomas, and basically took us in, by inviting us to come live there with our tipi.

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We read a few of the following scriptures about how fragile life is.

In James 4, 14 we read; “You do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while, and then vanishes away.

Then we read Psalm 90, 12; “So teach us to number our days, that we may present to You, a heart of wisdom.” We understood from this verse, that gaining wisdom, included the knowledge, that our days on this earth are numbered by the Lord.

And then Tom pointed out to us some scriptures on suffering and pain. Psalm 34, verse 18 says that “The Lord is close to the broken hearted, and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”

We finished the evening by reminding ourselves of these verses in Isaiah 41; “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous hand.  V 10

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So I’ll say bye for now, and a big thank you, for encouraging me with this podcast project. 

Just a note; I will be taking next week off to visit my family. I will catch up with you again, in the following week, on Wednesday!

I have enclosed in the description box, a link to a wonderful song “Thy loving kindness is better than life.”  From Psalm 63

https://www.google.com/search?tbm=vid&q=The+loving+kindness+maranatha+music&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjhuZe80YX8AhUXQ_EDHZ6VDRIQ8ccDegQIHhAD&biw=1280&bih=609&dpr=1.5#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:6c872337,vid:xyJxrSnpTPw

Jim Durkin on Spotify !! check it out: What is a Disciple?

https://open.spotify.com/episode/6sSs2qEh2qpSfE6zRiWTYf?si=5b33334171e64908

At the end of the last episode, Foundation Laid, I spontaneously said; we find blessings in the shelter of our Father's wings. That gave me another image of the family being a home, a place of shelter. The building of a physical house requires a foundation, and so does the inside of it, the home. There needs to be a plan, a blueprint to follow, both for the outer building, and a plan for the family who lives inside of it.

For example in raising our little daughter, it wasn’t about the building we lived in. Our responsibility living within it, was to create a place of belonging, a safe place for our daughter to grow. At the time we were aware that the most important thing was; our love, our faith, prayer and unity, that this should be the center of our daily life.

And these same qualities were what we had found at the Living Waters Ranch. We had the privilege during that time, of learning about God's ways. Living out in the country, we were pretty secluded from the rest of the world. We weren’t being bombarded with our cultures priorities. There were no TVs or radios, or newspapers and magazines to distract or influence us. There was plenty of work to do, and we enjoyed coming together for meals and evening meetings. It was kind of like going away to a Bible school, but it wasn’t about academics, rather the emphasis was on practical application.

I am reminded of a popular song from those days, that was actually taken from the Bible. When I was a teenager the group called the Byrds sang it. To everything, turn turn turn, there is a season, turn, turn, turn. And a time for every purpose, under heaven. A time to plant, a time to build, a time to laugh, a time to weep, a time to dance and time to mourn.

I would like to continue with a similar subject, from the last episode titled “A Fathers Love”. There is a blending of this theme that took place in my life, receiving God’s love as my Father, and then that of my own father, and my husband as a father. Remember the words of the song, “Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us, that we be called the children of God.” The foundation of my life was built by my parents, and now Thomas and I, had a lot to learn, in how to build and guide our little family.

   Since my parents visit, back in July, more things in our lives had changed.  Thomas’ hair was a bit shorter, the tipi was long gone, and then we told them about our daughter’s new name.

We explained that we had gradually come to the decision to change Nomtini’s name. I said that I had started calling her “Nomi” for short, and then that gave us the idea, that it sounded like Na - omi. Often people would ask is, where did that name came from because it was so unusual. We didn’t really want to get into talking about our past though.

My mom was quite pleased with the new name. I suppose she also had to explain to her friends, where the name of her granddaughter came from!

   Every week we were learning God’s principles for living, that were like building blocks, laying a firm foundation. We had gone through the series about marriage which had helped us a lot. The next one, was about the responsibility that parents have, in raising their children.

Though many of us at the ranch, had varying types of family backgrounds, most of us tended to believe in the hippie philosophy, that promotes freedom above all else. Of course that idea, came from the ever growing movement on childhood psychology, that says your child is pure and needs to develop on his own. Let them do what they want, and don’t try to correct or change them. I had already been influenced by those ideas, from the motherhood books, I had read when I was pregnant.

So Thomas and I, as young parents, were looking forward to learning what God has to say about children and the family.

Welcome back everyone!

We barely had time to get adjusted to our communal family at the Big House, and it was time to pack up again. We were going on the next tree planting job and would be gone for three weeks. So much for leaving the tipi life behind, we would soon be out camping in tents, with a team of 15 people, in the mountains.

We had a 200 mile drive ahead of us, partly on windy roads through the forest and hills. On arriving we had to get straight to work setting up the camp. The men were in charge of the tents and us ladies had to get organized to cook dinner. And, not to forget, we had our small babies to take care of, in between all of this action.

This time my friend and I had decided, to make it a priority during the week, to drive into town to the laundry mat. We usually had loads of dirty diapers and the children’s clothes. Though camping with babies wasn’t easy, we were young mothers, and we just took everything in stride.

When the men returned at the end of each hard day on the hills, we gathered in song and prayer before the dinner. We would sit around the campfire and listen to the men tell their stories of the day. Despite any troubles or trials they had; they considered it to be lessons that Jesus was teaching them, about endurance and learning to be thankful for everything.

He started talking about his past, and how much he had missed having his father around to take care of the family. He was beginning to realize that the deficiencies in his character, were because he had grown up alone, with no one to turn to who understood him.

Actually, that was one of the first things he had confided in me, when we first met three years before. He poured out his heart, to me again that evening, saying how thankful he was, that I always loved him, and hadn’t given up on him.

He said the reason, that he appreciated so much living at the ranch, was that there were other men teaching him basic things about life.

     Before I share some of Thomas’ letter to his mother, I will give you a brief account of her life.

Nadja was born in Berlin in 1926. Her mother was a young nanny to a wealthy family. Her father, was an Egyptian man, working in Berlin as a journalist. They never married, and he was only around a couple of years, before he returned to Cairo. Besides school, she began studying dance when she was a young girl. Then came the war, she was 14, when it started in 1940. Though she and her mother survived the horrors of the war in Berlin, she still managed to study drama during that time. In her documents she has noted that her graduation diploma from the school of theatre, had been destroyed in the bombings. She was able to get new copies, and acquired a job as a dancer, at the Ludwigspalast in 1949. There she met her future husband, Eduard van Dooren, who had also grown up in Berlin. He was the arranger and composer at the theater. She was in her early twenties, and he was 16 years older than her.

   He wrote;

“Dear family, All of our love and prayers are with you, we hope that the love of Jesus, would flow into your hearts through this letter. Our Father in heaven, has blessed us so richly, that we can do nothing else, but pass on this fullness of life to you.

Link to the song "Behold what manner of Love" / written in 1972

https://youtu.be/ojHxW3zMGyU

The last midnight event we had, was when the school bus was burning, and all the men were out in the dark, battling the fire. The next midnight meeting, was a planned prayer time at the dome. It was time to go into battle, for the souls of those, who lived in the hills around us. We didn’t know what was going on in those hippie communes, except for sure there were drugs, and an excess of alcohol being consumed. Between the fire they set, killing the chickens, and sneaking around on the property stealing things, we never knew what could happen next. Sadly, they were folks like we used to be, drop outs from the normal society.

Living Waters was known to be a Christian community, and that big cross by the road, was probably an object of provocation for them. Other folks who lived in the nearby towns, referred to us as Jesus Freaks, or Jesus People, but that didn’t necessarily have a negative connotation.

There had been back in June, of 1971, a title article in Time magazine, called The Jesus Revolution. It was depicting the psychedelic hippies who had turned to Jesus. I think normal people, didn’t feel as threatened by those converted hippies, as they did by the drug addicts, who lived in the parks and communes. Thomas and I, had never even heard of that name before, the so-called Jesus People.

Anyway, we thought it was a great idea to have a special time of prayer. In the latest Bible study, we had been reading about this subject. We read stories of people who prayed in the Old Testament, and what they experienced. And in the New Testament, we read Jesus’ teachings, and particularly his example, of how he prayed at night.

We decided to meet on a Friday evening, so we would have the freedom, to stay up as long as we wanted to. Some of us, also chose to fast, that day before the prayer meeting. Thomas and I, were always eager, to put into practice what we read in the Bible. If Jesus fasted, and prayed at night, then that’s what we wanted to do!

   After a few days, we came to the conclusion, that our life in the tipi was coming to an end. We decided, since it was originally, a big part of our old life, we should make a clean break, and move out.

At the beginning of the year, when I was pregnant, the idea of moving to the mountains with a tipi, had begun. We had just spent, the past 9 months dedicating our lives to making, and living in the tipi. But now everything had changed.

Through Gods leading, we had been given a new purpose for life. It was not only an outward purpose, but most importantly, he had changed us inwardly. We were not, who we used to be, as strange as that might sound.

Our first major lessons, in learning a new foundation as believers, had taken place in our tipi home. It was apparent to us, that we had arrived as baby Christians, and now it was time to learn to walk. We were looking forward to the next steps, for our little family.

All of us know how wonderful the gift of music is. It helps us express our feelings, our doubts and fears, our joy and our sorrows. The deepest of emotions can be conveyed through the music, it even has the power to bring back memories. Both the writer, and the listener, are impacted in some way. That’s exactly what Thomas was finding in the Psalms; all of David’s life story, written down in songs!

Not only was Thomas’ approach to music changing, but also his identity as a musician, was being transformed. During our hippie years, he only played melodies, either on his flute, or recorders, his guitar, and sometimes the piano when one was available. Maybe this development was, because he grew up, playing the trumpet. I don’t remember him actually writing words for songs for songs in those days.

Learning to sing together, was a brand new experience, and this seemed to bring a depth into our relationship. We had never done that before. It was clear that our years of smoking hash, playing bongos, and tripping out on mystical melodies was gone forever.

We had found two new pastimes, that completely removed us from our old lifestyle. They were, reading the scriptures and discussing them, and singing together.

I hope you are enjoying listening to my story, particularly how my life changed after meeting that 18 year old Berliner boy, named Thomas. From that time on, my life had been woven into, that of his family, and particularly his mother.

To understand more of that relationship, you would need to hear my earlier episodes. The saddest thing for his mother Nadja, was when we announced, that we were moving to California in the fall of ‘71. Our goodbye get together, consisted of Thomas passing the hash pipe around, and telling her what a terrible mother she had been. She left our place in tears, thinking she would never see her son again.

But then, he changed his tune, after we were living in Oakland. He missed his family, and wanted to share with them, what our lives were like in California. It was a whole new world for him, compared to West Berlin. That began his regular habit of writing long, descriptive letters to Nadja, and she always took the time to reply. Once we were married, and had our baby, her biggest hope was that she could come visit us.

What she definitely didn’t expect to hear, was that we had given our lives to Jesus, and were living at a Christian ranch. And that’s when the content of Thomas’ letters changed drastically.

I thought her opinions were so interesting, because they are exactly, what many people believe today. In our 21st century culture, you hear variations of these teachings everywhere, including in Christian circles. The leaders and authors, of these philosophies, tend to think, that they have a new understanding about life and truth. But God has a different perspective. There is a verse in the Bible that says “there is nothing new under the sun.”

I suppose, the authors of the books that Nadja was reading at the time, convinced her that they had the secret of life.

Then he had a great idea. I had on my right pinky finger, a gold band that my grandmother had given me for my birthday. He suggested that I wear it on my left hand as a wedding ring. He said, here let me put the ring on your finger. That turned into a sweet spontaneous ceremony, right there sitting by the open fire. It was pretty special, we renewed our marriage vows, and this time it was much more meaningful to us.

Song: My Glory and the Lifter of my Head, written in 1971

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVSf6wjNw1w